The First Great Monkey Island Race of 2010

Okay, I told apenpaap I'd do this once MI2: SE was announced, so here goes. The First Great Monkey Island Race of 2010 is within sight, so we're starting the thread early so we have more time to coordinate.

Dates and Times

The race is set to take place on the week of July 12-18, that is the week after the release of Monkey Island 2: Special Edition. Participants will set their own race times and race on their own schedule during the week. Approximate race times will be submitted to me so I can try and draw up a viewing schedule, as well as to make it easier for me to keep track of what times to document. Any participants who have a problem with these dates can be accommodated.

Broadcasting and Documenting

Documentation in the form of a post in this thread at the start and end of each game (or chapter of Tales) is required. This is how I will record times and determine winners. If you wish, you may time yourself and submit times along with your "finished" posts.

To clarify: If you do not post in this thread at the start and finish of each game, I cannot record your times.

In the past, a few of us broadcasted our races on Livestream, and it was a lot of fun, both for us and the people watching. However, this can cause sluggish performance in some games and can be difficult to make work with others, so if you prefer you can also provide updates on your progress over Twitter, post in this thread, or even come to one of the Livestreams and chat with everyone. What's fun about this is the added community element. If you choose to document, please provide a link to where you will be documenting and an estimated time (and time zone) that you will begin playing each game so I can add where and when to watch next to your name on the entrants list.

If anyone's interested in using Livestream and needs help, feel free to ask. Several of us have experience with it from the last two races and will be happy to help.

Rules

Currently, these rules are mostly unaltered from the last race. If anyone has any ideas on how to improve them, let me know.

It is required that you play all five games in the series in order. Sequence breaking is not allowed. You must play Secret, Lechuck's Revenge, Curse, Escape (yes, Escape), Narwhal, Spinner Cay, Leviathan, Trial and Execution, and Pirate God in that order.

Both editions of The Secret of Monkey Island are allowed.

LeChuck's Revenge: Special Edition is not allowed in this race. However, if you absolutely do not have access to the original game, you may use the Special Edition and you will be granted a five minute handicap.

The hint feature is not allowed.

In games that feature voice acting, voices must be enabled.

LeChuck's Revenge and Curse must be played in not-Lite and Mega Monkey modes.

If you choose to play the original version of The Secret of Monkey Island, text speed must be set to default settings +1 (or two below the maximum). If you choose to play the Special Edition, you must switch over to classic and set the text speed to maximum. However, if you play Special Edition in classic mode, the same rules apply as if you were playing the original version. LeChuck's Revenge is to be played at the same text speed as the original version of Secret.

The double-click room teleport in Curse and the room exit button in Escape are allowed.

Skipping dialogue or cutscenes is not allowed. Bypassing optional dialogue is allowed, but once a dialogue option is picked, you must let it play out uninterrupted. There is an exception for accidentally picking an identical dialogue section a second time (especially in Tales).

The credits count as a cutscene. You're finished with a game when you see "Turn off your computer and go to bed", "Turn off your computer and do something constructive", when Curse auto-quits, when Escape's credits stop rolling, and when the Tales episodes return to their menus.

Since the Special Edition credits are longer, you can consider yourself finished when the original version credits finish if you are playing that version. However, you'll either have to self-time or alt-tab out of the game, as these games don't let you return to the menu during the credits.

There is a possible glitch in LeChuck's Revenge where the skeletons will get stuck in a dancing animation during the bone song if you've adjusted the text speed. If this happens to you during the race, you may wait until the bone song music ends and then press Esc to continue the race.

Saving the game during the race is allowed, and may be a good idea in case of a game crash (though I only see that as being likely to happen in Escape). Loading saves made during the race is fine (but other than a crash, why would you want to?). If your game crashes and you haven't saved, er...I really have no idea what happens then.

The use of saves made outside the game is only allowed if the saves strictly take you to a previous point in the game. That is, you may not gain any new inventory or bypass any puzzles, even if you also lose inventory and puzzles become unsolved. If the save has the exact same inventory and solved puzzles or fewer, you may use it.

Certain puzzles in Escape from Monkey Island cause problems on certain PCs. The use of previously made saves in order to advance the game is allowed as long as it is only for the following problems:The game locks up when the chess players start fighting.The raft locks up when Guybrush tries to disembark at Pegnose Pete's.The timing for the boulder puzzle is incorrect because you have a faster PC.You may NOT use it to skip Monkey Kombat.If you need to make use of this rule, please try to make sure of where you are in the game ahead of time. I know that last time, I accidentally skipped picking up the chicken grease and whacking Herman with the coconut but also had to pick up the Eau de LeChuck twice, so I'll be trying not to make those mistakes again.Feel free to suggest any other situations where a problem with the game necessitates the use of saves.

If you should load a saved game for any reason, you may not reuse an old Monkey Kombat chart.

Since we're splitting the race apart, the winner will be determined by time. Time will be determined by forum posts made at the start and finish of each game.

Prizes

We have prizes now! The only thing is I'm not 100% certain what they are! Here's what I think we can expect:First place - An unidentified gift from Telltale! Thanks, Nikasaur and Jake!Second and third place - A Steam copy of Jolly Rover, courtesy of St.LouisRibs and Games, Gold, and Glory!

Participants and Broadcast Info

All start times are estimated and subject to change. All times listed are GMT.

Fastest time on The Secret of Monkey Island: doodinthemood (1:41)Fastest time on Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge: hamza712 (1:41)Fastest time on The Curse of Monkey Island: TomPravetz (2:03)Fastest time on The Curse of Monkey Island that I actually believe: GuruGuru214 (2:23)Fastest time on Escape from Monkey Island: OzzieMonkey (3:10)Fastest LucasArts time: doodinthemood (9:14)Fastest time on Launch of the Screaming Narwhal: doodinthemood (1:03)Fastest time on The Siege of Spinner Cay: OzzieMonkey (0:58)Fastest time on Lair of the Leviathan: doodinthemood (1:17)Fastest time on The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood: hamza721 (1:08)Fastest time on Rise of the Pirate God: Mandahaya (1:20)Fastest time on Tales of Monkey Island: GuruGuru214 (6:05)Fastest time: doodinthemood (15:26)First finisher: apenpaapMost endurance (longest time on Escape from Monkey Island without giving up): Mandahaya (13:47)Most stick-to-itiveness (overcame overwhelming odds to finish): MandahayaClosest competitors: doodinthemood and OzzieMonkey (0:08 difference)Most tardy: The HighwayLeast likely to be made a mod: TomPravetz

After the Race

You didn't think the race was over when the last person finishes Pirate God, did you? As sort of a celebration, eight of us will be choosing one game and streaming it again after the race, this time for fun and taking suggestions from the audience. We'll be going through all the jokes we skipped over during the race, so it should be a good time!

We'll be determining times after the race is over. The games will be played in order, so we'll be taking turns to decide when to play each of our games.

Here's a brief history. Before chapter 5 came out, there was a thread encouraging people to run the series in a marathon the day before the game came out. Then someone said that somebody should stream it over the internet. I accepted the challenge, and while I was testing the streaming software, Icedhope and I decided to make a race of it. Iced, Secret Fawful, and I were the only three participants, and nobody finished. I played for 18 hours straight and only got into the start of Tales, if I recall.

So after chapter 8 came out, more people were interested in participating, so we held a second race at the end of December. This one was more well-thought, and we spread it over three days. OzzieMonkey won (by five freaking hours, wtf?), I took second, and apenpaap took third.